Defense Base Act Covers Third Country Nationals

Hi, my name is Brian Wiklendt and I'm a Defense Base Act law attorney for Garfinkel Schwartz in Cocoa Beach, Florida and Maitland Florida. But I travel around the country and have talked with and worked on behalf of clients from around the world.

As a lawyer, a counselor, I have heard a lot about what happens to people who are working overseas in war zones.

From Iraq, to Afghanistan there many thousands of brave people from all walks of life who I consider unsung heroes, hard-working men and women who are trying to make a living in some very dangerous circumstances. But when they get sick or they're injured, even killed, they have to fight for the medical care and benefits, compensation that are due to them under the Defense Base Act law.

Contractor Shares Stories of Third Country Nationals

Please read this story as told by an unidentified civilian contractor who has worked in the Middle East and Far East for U.S. Department of Defense as a civilian contractor. He talks about the other employees he has met.

He talks in particular about the plight of Third Country Nationals who are people who are hired and then sent home without receiving medical and financial compensation that is rightfully theirs when they're injured, ill, or are killed working in Iraq or Afghanistan for an employer who is a contractor or a sub-contractor of the U.S. Department of Defense.

"Some employers treat people well. Some don't know about the rights that the Defense Base Act provides. This story explains some of the situations that this contractor has heard of.

"I’ve pretty much grown up and worked overseas most of my life in the Middle East and the Far East.

"Culturally it’s extremely different and as a result there’s a lot things that people other than one’s that have been over there, or and have experienced it’s almost kind of hard to explain to them.

What is a Third Country National?

"But Third Country Nationals or ones that are ones from what we used to could call the third world and pretty much other than the third world, us and Europe and Japan and some of the other first world countries.

"A lot of the labor force comes from these third world countries the Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Africa, a lot of the under developed countries. You’ll have workers that are being exploited willfully going over, because they’ll go over to work for wages that nobody here in the states would even dream of doing.

Unemployment Causes Desperation

"But because of how how bad their prospect is of finding a job back in their home country. They’ll sit and they’ll work and pretty much it will vary but there will be a lot of workers that will send a hundred percent or ninety five percent of all the income that they worked for that month will be sent back to take care of their relatives and remit it back to the countries.

70-80% of the Workforce is Third Country Nationals

"As far as a lot of the unskilled as well as some of the skilled labor that’s being used in for a lot of these contracts in Afghanistan, Africa and Iraq a lot of it’s local hires, local country nationals and the other part is third country nationals and which constitute the vast majority maybe seventy eighty percent of the workforce just because of how cheap they are for labor.

Unaware of the Defense Base Act Law

"The vast majority have never heard of the Defense Base Act and while there’s some that are probably being treated fairly, the vast majority are never being informed of anything if they get hurt. They’re given limited medical attention or what we would consider subpar typically.

"And this is speaking generally. Because some are treated very well. But the vast majority is more comparable with what they’re accustomed to in their own home country.

"But most of them, they’re afraid of losing their job. They’re afraid of losing time away. There’s some companies that will simply replace them.

A Replaceable Workforce

"And if they are unskilled or even skilled labor, they’re easily replaceable. Quite a few times they’ll sit there and they’ll get treatment  shipped out. And if they’re lucky they’ll get a ticket back home.

"But in many cases you’ve got unscrupulous companies that they’ll  just get abandoned and at a drop-off  point and the UAE (United Arab Emirates) is a big example of that.

"You’ll meet a lot of people that are working at jobs well below their level of education of what we would consider. And not just here and now with times being hard.

Ophthalmologist Working as a Waitress

"I don’t know to many other places where you’ll find an ophthalmologist by trade from the Philippines that would gladly work as a waitress so that she can make four hundred dollars a month.

"And that was more appealing to work as a waitress because she couldn’t make four hundred dollars back in the  Philippines even though she’s a trained and licensed ophthalmologist.

"Anyone who’s been over there and you start talking to quite a few of them you’ll find that you’ve got a lot of people that are educated and trained that are working at a lot of jobs that are more manual labor than their level or at their specialty of education."